UNITED KINGDOM
‘Humanist’ stripped of title
The American Humanist Association on Monday withdrew its humanist of the year award from Richard Dawkins, 25 years after he received the honor, accusing the academic and author of “demean[ing] marginalized groups” using “the guise of scientific discourse.” The association honored Dawkins, whose books include The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion, in 1996 for his “significant contributions” in communicating scientific concepts to the public. The group referred to a post on Twitter by Dawkins earlier this month, in which he compared trans people to Rachel Dolezal, the civil rights activist who posed as a black woman for years. “In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], was vilified for identifying as Black,” he wrote. “Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.” Responding to the criticism, Dawkins wrote: “I do not intend to disparage trans people. I see that my academic ‘Discuss’ question has been misconstrued as such and I deplore this.”
UNITED STATES
Police kill black teen girl
Police in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday fatally shot a black teenage girl they confronted as she lunged at two people with a knife, as seen in police video footage of the encounter, authorities said. Releasing police body-camera video of the shooting hours later, Columbus Interim Police Chief Michael Woods said that officers involved there were responding to a 911 call from someone who reported an attempted stabbing at a home on the city’s southeast side. Arriving police encountered a chaotic scene of several people on the front lawn where the teenager in question, brandishing a knife, charged toward one female who falls backwards, then lunged at a second female, the video showed. A slow-motion replay of the video shows the second victim stumbling backward against a vehicle parked in the driveway as the knife-wielding youth raises the weapon as if about to stab her, and an officer opens fire. The teenager falls to the ground and the weapon, which appears to be a kitchen-style knife, is seen lying on the pavement near her as an officer crouches at her side to render medical aid. Family members have identified the teenage girl as Makiyah Bryant, aged 16.
EUROPE
Thousands of kids missing
At least 18,000 unaccompanied child migrants have disappeared after arriving in European nations, including Greece, Italy and Germany. An investigation by the Guardian and the cross-border journalism collective Lost in Europe found that from January 2018 to December last year, 18,292 unaccompanied child migrants went missing in Europe — equivalent to nearly 17 children a day. Last year alone, 5,768 children disappeared in 13 European nations. Most of the children who have gone missing came to Europe from Morocco, but Algeria, Eritrea, Guinea and Afghanistan were also among the top countries of origin. Data available showed that 90 percent were boys and about one in six were younger than 15. The investigation, which collated data on missing unaccompanied minors from all 27 EU countries, as well as Norway, Moldova, Switzerland and the UK, found the information provided was often inconsistent or incomplete, meaning the true numbers of missing children could be much higher.
NEW ZEALAND
Bubble already ‘godsend’
For the past year, Queenstown has been more ghost town than party central, but unlike the inhabitants of most tourism hotspots, locals in the adventure hub are optimistic that its mojo is back. The travel bubble that opened with Australia on Monday has once again brought planes full of visitors. Destination Queenstown chief executive Ann Lockhart said that it was the “light at the end of the tunnel.” “A strong winter season will be a godsend basically for our industry as a whole,” she said. Ski bookings from Australia have spiked, NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson said. “It’s the best news in a year... We’re just looking forward to the vibe coming back into town,” he said.
NEW ZEALAND
Nation’s healthcare to unite
The government yesterday announced that it would consolidate its fragmented healthcare system into a national service. The existing system is divided into 20 district health boards, each with their own budget. Some describe the system as a “postcode lottery” of treatment, depending on where people live. Minister of Health Andrew Little said that over three years, the district boards would be replaced by a single new body called Health New Zealand. He promised an increased focus on public health and treating people early so that they do not end up in hospitals. The overhaul also includes a new Indigenous Maori Health Authority.
JAPAN
State of emergencies mulled
The government is considering a state of emergency for Tokyo and Osaka as new COVID-19 case numbers surge, Japan Broadcasting Corp reported yesterday, a move that would enable prefectural authorities to impose curbs to try to stop infections from spreading. With thousands of new cases resulting from highly infectious strains of the virus, the government is expected to declare the state of emergency this week for the capital and Osaka prefecture, as well as the latter’s neighboring Hyogo prefecture, a number of domestic media outlets reported.
JAPAN
Shrine honored without visit
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga yesterday sent a ritual offering to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine that honors war dead, including perpetrators of the country’s World War II atrocities on its neighbors. South Korea expressed “deep disappointment” at Suga’s offering to the shrine to mark a spring festival, with China also likely to be angered by the move. The shrine in Tokyo honors about 2.5 million war dead, mostly Japanese, but it also honors senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes. Suga sent a sacred tree, but was not expected to visit the shrine. A 2013 visit to the shrine by former prime minister Shinzo Abe sparked outcries from Beijing and Seoul, as well as a rare diplomatic rebuke from the US.
INDIA
Workers abducted from rig
State-run oil producer ONGC said that three of its employees were kidnapped by gunman from a rig site in the east of the country yesterday. The employees were kidnapped in a company-owned vehicle from ONGC’s Lakwa Field in Sivasagar District in the eastern state of Assam, where the exploration company has been operating for nearly six decades. “Later, the vehicle was found abandoned near the Nimonagarh jungles, close to the Assam-Nagaland border,” ONGC wrote on Twitter.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RELATIONS: Cultural spats, such as China’s claims over the origins of kimchi, have soured public opinion in South Korea against Beijing over the past few years Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae-myung, after taking center stage at an Asian summit in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s departure. The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came the final day of Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade, and a day after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties. Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Xi, with the two
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